About Eric Hobeck

Eric Hobeck is a Staff Writer for District Sports Page covering the Redskins and Capitals. Eric contributes to high school sports coverage at InsideNova.com. He served as sports editor of The Rotunda at Longwood University for two years, where he was also the men’s basketball beat writer. He hosted a campus radio show for three years and called basketball and baseball games for the station’s award-winning sports team. You can follow Eric on Twitter @eric_hobeck.

As another round of mid-May exit interviews proceeded on Thursday morning and early afternoon at Kettler, the Washington Capitals were in strong agreement on two things.

First, this is the worst recent playoff exit to date for the club.

Second, the season was a failure.

After Tuesday’s furious comeback attempt fell short in a season-ending overtime loss in Pittsburgh, the players tended to wear their emotions on their sleeves on Thursday. For many, it was a struggle to explain how this once-promising campaign, which featured likely the best regular season in franchise history, ended a full month before its previously projected conclusion.

Alex Ovechkin’s latest spring postmortem might well have been his toughest yet. The 30-year-old has been the face of the Washington Capitals for over a decade, and the quickly-graying Russian welled up in Pittsburgh late Tuesday night after his team again fell short of the championship and accompanying long playoff run that this city will continue to wait for.

“Every year, lots of expectations, lots of great players, something missing. This group of guys can do better and bigger than just the second round,” Ovechkin said. [Read more…]

Statistically, it wasn’t going poorly at all. The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins were very close in most major metrics late in the second period on Wednesday night, but in reality, Pittsburgh was all but dominating play with higher-quality chances and sustained possession in the Capitals’ zone.

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The NHL announced Sunday evening that Washington Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik has been suspended for three games as a result of his hit on Olli Määttä in Game 2 against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday in D.C.

With dozens of hats sailing to the Verizon Center playing surface and Chuck Brown’s “Bustin’ Loose” playing over the public address system, the ultimate outcome of the opening game in the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins lay still in doubt.

Fans begged for T.J. Oshie’s hat-trick goal, the game-winning wraparound 9:33 into the overtime session, to stand as called on the ice. The building’s pressure-cooker status reached its peak as referee Dan O’Rourke took off his headset after a review that seemingly lasted as long as this all-time playoff contest itself.

His affirmation of the goal resulted in a raucous scene of euphoria. What more often than not felt like the first round of a heavyweight title bout brought a 4-3 decision in favor of the hosts, the latest step in the to-be-determined journey of this team that, at least for now, wears the hopes of its city on its back.

With a 3-0 series lead in hand for the first time in franchise history, and riding high after a dominant win in Game 3, the Washington Capitals came out flat again in the opening stages of a game in this best-of-seven series.

Giving up the game’s first goal for the second game in a row, Washington looked very out of sorts throughout the first two frames; a T.J. Oshie tally with 17:22 left was not enough as the Capitals fell to the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 on Wednesday night.

A third period essentially bookended by a power play goal from a star on both the Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers was a fitting penultimate frame in a potential preview of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Both teams had over 60 shot attempts and 30 hits each, and the atmosphere was befitting of this traditional Metropolitan Division rivalry.

Behind shootout goals from Nick Cousins and Sam Gagner and two stops in the skills competition from Steve Mason, the Flyers prevailed 2-1 in a shootout at the Wells Fargo Center. [Read more…]

No longer interested in continuing the narrative of slow starts and allowing the first goal of the game, the Washington Capitals commanded action from the jump on Tuesday night at Verizon Center. The 2-1 overtime win for Washington over the Carolina Hurricanes came in a somewhat controversial way, with storylines abound.

First, it was the fast-paced start. Outshooting the Hurricanes 6-1 less than 7 minutes into the contest, their relative domination of the opening frame resulted in a scoreless tie at the first intermission, but the message from the Capitals was clear — they weren’t settling.

“I was fine with the first period. We hit a couple crossbars, thought we were playing the right way. Just sometimes, you’re not going to find the back of the net,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. [Read more…]

Less than 72 hours after Brooks Laich was shipped off to Toronto, the hometown fans at Verizon Center on Wednesday night warmly welcomed their adopted hometown son back with open arms, cheering during his first-period tribute video that aired on the jumbotron and even when his name was briefly on the big screen as part of the Maple Leafs’ starting lineup.

On the ice, however, Laich’s return to the nation’s capital was one of decidedly less positivity for his new team. Two quick goals from the Capitals in the first paved the way for a 3-2 Washington win, in spite of a lackluster overall performance for a lot of the contest from the hosts’ standpoint.

The Washington Capitals have traded Brooks Laich, their longest-tenured player, defense prospect Connor Carrick and a 2016 second-round draft pick to the Maple Leafs in exchange for winger Daniel Winnik and a fifth-round draft pick in 2016.

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